Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 1 20H c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Let and . Decomposing at the first return and using the Markov property gives the renewal equationFor , define the probability generating functions and . Absolute convergence, or nonnegative summation, justifies the convolution identity . The binomial series givesSolving the renewal identity gives the first-return generating function of the simple symmetric random walkAs consistency checks, as , confirming recurrence, while . By monotone convergence of , this last limit is , confirming null recurrent states.